I took this portrait of Shiela Jantjies last week during my visit to my family in South Africa.
This was the 1st time that I photographed the people of Kranshoek, a Griqua community outside my home town of Plettenberg Bay. The Griquas consitute a subgroup of South Africa's heterogeneous and muliracial Coloured people. With the recent demographic changes since the fall of Apartheid, this community have now become much more mixed, with newcomers from the Transkei (Xhosa), as well as many folk from more distant sub-Saharan countries in search of economic betterment.
I accompanied a 'dotter' on this day - Cathy Coetzee - a health worker from 'That's It!' (American Charitable NGO - part of the George Bush initiative to combat Aids/HIV) assisting with the curbing and treatment of TB and HIV cases, which is rife in the more socially - economically deprived areas and communities in South Africa.
Whilst I was driving back home after our walkabout in Kranshoek to administer medicines to the more compromised patients at their houses, I noticed this dilapidated but attractive very green house, and stopped to introduce myself, and subsequently took pictures of Shiela, her sisters, and their kids. It was quite gloomly inside so had to up the ISO.
After our picture taking session was finished, Shiela showed me the rest of their house, and that was when I saw the potential of this particular corner in the bathroom.
Times are hard, money is little, and the menfolk are absent. Shiela was a primary school teacher before succumbing to depression in 1995 after her divorce, and have been unemployed ever since. Now her daughters and their boyfriends support her, and she collects a disability grant.
She is uncertain of the future, and here I have tried to use the cracked mirror to illustrate that. In that future reflection is both light, and a representative of the next generation bathed in this light, but in spite of this promise things are very uncertain for her at the moment....and this responsability is weighing her down...
I salute Shiela for her honesty, frankness and willingness to have me share her story with you.